Baldessin Press is the orignal studio of George Baldessin situated in the hills above St Andrews in country Victoria about 40 minutes from Melbourne city. Thanks to the support of Culture and the Arts WA and an unexpected win at the CCP Salon I was able to stay here for five weeks and focus on producing monoprints for the Safe Keeping exhibition in Fremantle in February 2018.

While home in Wellington for summer my friend Alistair Fraser kindly shared with me two types of kokowai from different areas of New Zealand. The ochre will be crushed and applied to the surface of New Zealand and Kimberley landscape photographs as part of the Ochre and Light - Two Homes series.

I directed and filmed this short documentary about Kimberley Ochre (Ornmol). The video discusses the cultural values, uses and language relating to ochre. We also used the making of this documentary as a media training exercise for Mowanjum arts workers.

I left the Kimberley a little early this year and traveled to Braidwood NSW to spend time with Master printmaker Basil Hall. I transported across Australia 50 kg of scratched up metal sheets that I found lying in the pindam on the deceased estate we purchased belonging to bushman Vic Cox. I printed the wear and tear from the metal sheets onto hahnemuhle Rag Paper and then overlapped the Stone tool imagery on top.

December 9, 2016

I found these metal plates lying in the bush, they once belonged to old Kimberley bushman Vic Cox, All scratched up and covered in red earth, I decided to put them through the printing press. Next week the metal sheets and I travel to Basil Hall's printmaking studio in Braidwood NSW thanks to support from Country Arts WA and Department of Culture and the Arts.